Child Poverty In Connecticut

December 19, 2007

It's been three years since the Connecticut General Assembly created the Child Poverty and Prevention Council and charged it with cutting child poverty in half by 2014. The council, in its initial plan, made 67 recommendations that were deemed too costly for the legislature to approve.

With the help of a panel of experts, the council has trimmed the list to 13 initiatives. Now the legislature and Gov. M. Jodi Rell must do their part.

The recommendations include a state earned income tax credit for low-wage parents, full-day and full-year preschool, and more health insurance opportunities for low-income families. Lawmakers have introduced legislation for many of these, only to see the measures die in committee or in budget negotiations. The state has, notably, failed twice to enact the earned income tax credit, which many advocates regard as the most important proposal.

Ten percent of Connecticut children live in families earning less than the federal poverty level of $20,516 for a family of four. That percentage hasn't budged since 1990. Hartford, with 43 percent of its children living in poverty, has the sixth highest child poverty rate among cities of 100,000-plus residents.

The child poverty council, chaired by Robert Genuario, secretary of the Office of Policy and Management, is made up of legislators, state department chiefs, advocates and experts in the field of poverty. With that kind of firepower, the earned income tax credit, at east, should be approved in the next legislative session to show that Connecticut is doing more than paying lip service to reducing child poverty.